


Amytal Sodium + Mac

by Emachinescat



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Drugged Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016), Father-Son Relationship, FebuWhump2021, Friendship, Gen, Helicopter Parent Jack, Hurt/Comfort, Papa Bear Jack, Protective Jack Dalton (MacGyver 2016), Season/Series 02, The Good Old Days, Truth Serum, Whump, febuwhumpday8, stay awake, this is no time to sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:08:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29296410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emachinescat/pseuds/Emachinescat
Summary: An increasingly desperate Jack struggles to transport a drugged and barely coherent MacGyver to exfil before it’s too late. Written for Febuwhump on Tumblr. Day 8: “hey, hey, this is no time to sleep”
Comments: 8
Kudos: 59
Collections: Febuwhump 2021 - Emachinescat, febuwhump 2021





	Amytal Sodium + Mac

**Author's Note:**

> I'm excited to present another MacGyver fic to you all! It takes place during season 2 sometime, and it was painful and cathartic at the same time, considering I wrote it after 5x5. But it's great to write these two boys back in the day, with Jack taking care of Mac. I did do research for this fic, too, but if there are any inaccuracies, as per usual, please bear with me - I'm no doctor. :) I hope you enjoy - I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Even though the exfil point was less than a mile from where Jack Dalton stood, it had never been farther. This day was rapidly reaching Cairo levels of suck.

Jack had arrived to rescue his missing partner after an op gone to hell to find the two, now very dead, domestic terrorists who'd taken Mac injecting some foreign substance into his bloodstream. Jack would later find out that it wasn't the first dose they'd given him - that's why Mac hadn't had the opportunity to escape on his own.

Because whatever this stuff was, it messed him up.

The bodies of the terrorists had barely hit the floor when Jack was racing across the room to his friend. Mac had been tied to a sturdy, high-backed dining chair, slumped in his bonds. It took Jack two seconds to cut the duct tape on his partner's wrists and ankles, but Mac hadn't even seemed to notice he was free. He was awake, but he was not _there_. His blue eyes had glazed over with a detached vagueness that sent fear sparking down Jack's spine.

With great effort, Jack had managed to hoist a limp MacGyver to a facsimile of a standing position, and that movement had elicited some response, much to Jack's enormous relief.

"J-Jack?" Jack fought the urge to cry at the sound of Mac's voice, weak and lost and scared - it didn't sound like his partner at all.

"I'm here, pal," Jack said simply. "Let's get you home."

It was easier said than done.

Even with Jack supporting him, Mac couldn't keep his feet under him for very long. He attacked his newest mission - getting to exfil without Jack having to carry him - with a determination that was one hundred percent on brand for Angus MacGyver, but determination could only get a person so far, especially when they had been drugged with what was most likely some dangerous cocktail of mind-altering drugs. Jack just hoped that whatever had been given to him, it wasn't deadly.

"So, any idea what they pumped you full of in there, hoss?" Jack asked as he grabbed the back of Mac's belt to steady him for the umpteenth time. It didn't help that the ground was steep and uneven with roots and rocks - these terrorists had set up shop in an retired, abandoned safe house used by the FBI in the mid-80s, which just so happened to be halfway up a mountain.

Mac's answer, when it finally came, was not encouraging. It took him at least a full minute to understand and process Jack's question, and then another full minute to formulate his response. Jack had already given up on the question, thinking that Mac either hadn't heard him or hadn't understood, but then Mac slurred, "Truth ssserum."

Jack stopped moving for a second, pulling Mac to a halt next to him. It was mid-afternoon, yet already it seemed to be growing dark underneath the thick canopy high overhead. He studied his friend closely, taking in even in the dimness the flushed cheeks, sweat-beaded brow, and hazy eyes with anxiety pooling in his gut. "They wanted information?"

Mac nodded, a jerky, uncoordinated motion, and then he muttered, "Pr'bly something like Thiopental Sodium or Amytal Sodium …"

"So what you're saying is that you're just really salty right now, huh, kid?" Jack joked weakly, not knowing for sure what either of the drugs mentioned were, but knowing they couldn't be good. He gripped Mac's waist tighter as he lost his footing again, this time while standing still, and took on more of his partner's weight. It was a credit to how bad Mac felt that he didn't protest being supported. He reached out his other hand and felt Mac's head. It wasn't hot, but it was reaching a level of warmth that didn't set well with his overwatch.

"I think you're getting a fever," Jack remarked, trying to keep the worry out of his tone.

"Side effect of l'rge doses of Am'tal Sodium," Mac explained.

Fear clawed at Jack's chest. "Just how much of this stuff did they give you?" he demanded, even as he started moving again, now half-carrying, half-dragging a mostly limp Mac by his side. The blonde's feet were barely moving anymore, his toes more often than not scraping uselessly against the loose dirt.

"Too much," Mac supplied, very unhelpfully.

"Okay…" Jack breathed out slowly in an attempt to calm himself. "Well, what other side effects should we be looking out for? If they used it as truth serum, are you gonna be revealing all your deepest darkest secrets to me? If so, I'm game for a good round of truth or dare."

"D'sn't work like that," Mac informed him, and Jack couldn't help but crack a smile at the piece of Old Mac trying to shine through. "Truth serums are act-"

"Okay, I'm going to stop you right there, Einstein," Jack interrupted. "I don't think you're up for a science lesson right now. Can you tell me what other symptoms I need to keep an eye out for?" By his best estimate, based on the map he'd checked right before he'd set out with a drugged Mac in tow, exfil was still quite a ways away. If they kept moving at this pace, they should definitely make it in time, but if Mac kept deteriorating, things would get much more complicated.

"Uh… fever," said Mac, and Jack just grunted, not reminding him that that was the one they'd just talked about. "...confusion… I think? Headache…. Hallucinations, sometimes… anxiety… spasms 'n diz-zy-ness-" he overpronounced the word like he was having to try extra hard to say it correctly, "-sleepiness, insomnia, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation-"

"Okay, okay, I think I get the picture," Jack interrupted Mac's breathless spurting of grim side effect after another. "Geez, you're starting to sound like a commercial for Prozac or somethin'. How can it give you sleepiness and insomnia? That's about as opposite as you can get."

"Mmmm... depends on the person," Mac said several long seconds later, his words sounding as if they were being pulled with great difficulty from deep within. Still moving, but slower now, Jack glanced over and saw that Mac's eyelids were beginning to flutter, and suddenly all of Mac's weight was on Jack. He stumbled, barely keeping them from taking a roll down a steep incline.

"Hey, hey," Jack gently shook his friend, who stirred with a groan, "this is no time to sleep."

"Tired," said Mac simply.

"I know, bud, and I'm sorry, but I've got to get your scrawny ass out of these woods before we miss exfil, and I don't know if I can carry you down this mountain. I need you to help me, even if it's just a little, okay?" He paused, then added, "And anyway, you probably shouldn't sleep until medical's got a chance to look at you. It's safer that way."

Mac didn't say anything, but he did make a valiant attempt to straighten up and bear some of his own weight, so Jack pressed on.

Five minutes later, the nervousness set in. Despite being exhausted and barely coherent, Mac gazed around furtively, whipped his head around at every snap of a twig, mumbled something about his skin crawling and chest hurting and he thought they were being followed. At one point, Mac tried to break away from Jack as if he were the enemy, and would have rolled down the rest of the mountain if Jack's reflexes hadn't been so finely tuned.

A short pause and a panic attack later, they were back on their way, Mac still shifty and scared but thankfully more docile. He nodded off again.

"Hey," Jack reminded him with another jostle, "no sleeping, remember? Let's get down this mountain first."

Ten minutes after that, they had to stop for Mac to empty his stomach of everything he'd eaten in the past five years. Jack rubbed his back and offered soothing words as his partner hacked and gasped and sobbed breathlessly against the strain to his body, but there was no time for coddling after the fact. They were running out of time.

Mac _really_ wanted to sleep after the toll that had taken on his system, but Jack prodded him awake, trying to distract him with mindless babble. The ground was slowly beginning to level out, and he could hear the chop of the helicopter blades several hundred yards away in a clearing at the base of the mountain - they were going to make it in time, if only just!

At this point, Mac had become so uncoordinated and woozy that he might as well have been asleep, as Jack was supporting him entirely. But still, every time his head dropped onto Jack's shoulder or fell forward, Jack prodded him back to consciousness, desperate to keep his boy genius awake and semi-coherent, because what if he fell asleep and didn't wake up again?

And then they were in the clearing, and Mac was trying to sleep again, and Jack shook him as the exfil team surged forward to put the fading kid on a stretcher. Mac blearily opened his eyes at the movement.

"Hey, Mac,' Jack said softly as he kept pace with the stretcher with long strides. "Stay awake for a little longer for me, will ya? Just until we get in the air and the medics can take a good look at you."

Mac studied his face with a serious, but baffled expression. Finally, he gave a tiny, clumsy nod right before he was lifted into the chopper.

"'Kay, Dad," he murmured, and Jack froze where he stood, heart pounding wildly in his chest. Mac had said that hallucinations were one of the side effects of whatever drug he thought he'd been given. Was Mac hallucinating now? Was he seeing his dad instead of Jack?

Or - and this idea was one that Jack found himself approaching shyly, as if afraid to acknowledge it in case it turned out not to be true - could it be that Mac's defenses were down? Could it be that he saw Jack as a father figure, that maybe Jack had been able to fill in, in some small way, the void that James MacGyver had left when he'd abandoned his son?

"Dalton! We need to move!"

Jack shook himself out of his thoughts, swiped the back of his arm across his eyes, and followed Mac into the chopper. Medics were already examining him, and even though Jack was informed that they wouldn't be able to know for sure what they were dealing with until they were back at Phoenix and could run more extensive tests, he was reassured that sleep was probably the best thing for Mac, now that his vitals were being closely monitored.

Jack sat down next to the stretcher, and grabbed one of the kid's hands. To his surprise, Mac was still awake, barely clinging on to consciousness.

"Hey, man. You're gonna get help real soon, okay?"

"Is it… 'kay to sleep now?" Mac asked, his words falling over one another like someone tumbling in slow motion down the stairs.

Jack smiled warmly and brushed a strand of sweaty hair off of his kid's forehead. "Yeah, son," he said, not even realizing what he'd called Mac in this quiet moment - it just felt right. "Now, it's time to sleep."

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this little story - there are plenty more MacGyver stories to come in the next month, and I'm so pumped about getting to share them! I'd love to know what you thought!
> 
> Thanks for reading, and your support! :)
> 
> ~Emachinescat ^..^


End file.
